Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. II, 1889.djvu/244

 know where to come. Reasonable with them as is reasonable. Thursday night,’ he says, and then he slung his hook round the corner.”

“What’s a four-half shiner?” inquired Bob, looking from under his eyebrows.

“Well, I didn’t know myself, just then; but I’ve found out. It’s a public-house pewter,—see?”

A flash of intelligence shot across Bob’s face…

When Pennyloaf returned she found her husband with his box of moulds and medals on the table. He was turning over its contents, meditatively. On the table there also lay a half-crown and a florin, as though Bob had been examining these products of the Royal Mint with a view to improving the artistic quality of his amateur workmanship. He took up the coins quietly as his wife entered and put them in his pocket.

“Mrs. Rendal’s been at me again. Bob,” Pennyloaf said, as she set down her market-basket. “You’ll have to give her something to-day.”